For more than 10 years a sad, dead twig has extended like a gnarled witch’s finger from the sidewalk tree bed outside of my Williamsburg apartment.
It was once a young tree, I guess, but now bakes in the sun above an accumulated stockpile of litter and dog waste. I finally decided to do something about it.
Under the city’s Million Trees program, which offers to plant free trees around the five boroughs, I put in a request for the city to entrust my block with a new tree.
“Your Service Request has been sent to the Department of Parks and Recreation,” the automated response read. “DPR will respond within 720 days.”
Considering trees literally eat carbon from the air (one tree averages 48 pounds a year, according to the Arbor Foundation), 720 days seems a long time to wait for a response during a “climate emergency.” That was 457 days ago and I’ve yet to receive my tree — or a response.
It’s incredible to watch people who claim to love the environment do so little to actually improve it. In fact, many seem openly hostile to the idea. No one more than big city Democrats, who ironically embrace ugliness and sterility in their pursuit of a greener planet.
Environmentalists were once called tree-huggers and wore “Save the Whales” t-shirts. Now, they desecrate priceless works of art while turning a blind eye to the mass killing of both trees and historically endangered marine mammals
In fact, the government of Scotland admitted this week it had downed 15.7 million trees since the year 2000 to make way for wind farms as a part of its “green energy” and “net-zero” carbon emission goals. That comes out to around 1,700 trees a day.
Closer to home, activists claim controversial wind farm development off the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island has contributed to a record number of dead whales washing ashore this year, including at least 14 humpbacks so far.
While New York City bans plastic straws, shopping bags, and wood-fired pizza ovens, why hasn’t it occurred to any of these climate warriors to incentivize gardening?
Gardens not only remove carbon and combat the heat island effect of big cities, but they also increase human happiness. How much more incentivizing do we need?
Gardens beautify our streets and lower crime — a block with well-maintained gardens, in the broken-windows mentality, is less likely to attract lawlessness. How much less? According to a 2022 study in crime-plagued South Africa, for every 1% increase in total green space, there is a 1.2% decrease in violent crime and a 1.3% decrease in property crime.
Gardening is also a much healthier hobby than doom-scrolling or binge-watching Netflix.
But gardening can get expensive, as anyone knows. And in New York City’s “green” crusade, trees and plants for your stoop, backyard, sidewalk bed, or window box are still charged sales tax. The same goes for soil, fertilizer, gardening tools, containers, and anything else you might need.
While produce in grocery stores is tax-free, in New York, Uncle Sam wants his cut if you plant your own tomatoes or grow a bit of basil on your windowsill.
And just imagine how much carbon it takes to ship those veggies to the store, not to mention the plastic packaging. If the city was serious about being greener, it would eliminate this tax while awarding tax credits to serious citizen-greenskeepers.
Funny enough, New York Democrats have made this very point through legislation, but — surprise, surprise — it only benefits rich people and developers, not average New Yorkers and renters. The city offers a “Green Roof” tax Abatement of up to $200,000 for developers who cover residential rooftops of new buildings in at least 50% green space.
That allows developers to plant a bunch of silly boxwoods on a roof and then write it off, all in the name of environmentalism. A plot of shrubs 50 stories up does not attract pollinators or benefit other wildlife. It also only enriches the quality of life for the people in that building, not anyone passing by on the street.
Next to black holes and the human brain, Earth’s climate remains the most complex and least understood thing in the known universe, and the science around how the climate works is far from settled.
One thing we do know is that plants are inherently good. Yet greenery is an afterthought in the green agenda. Perhaps it’s time to rename it the cobalt agenda.
